Post #125: A Postcard from Salisbury Cathedral

4 Aug. 2024 (Salisbury)

     Traditional Anglican, Lutheran, or Reformed services may not, these days at least, have a reputation for arousing great passions—and yet nothing in church shakes me up the way their older hymns do. I could use this space to reflect on why it might be so (the reason is not obvious to me, only the fact), but in this case I prefer to find my strength in quietness and confidence, as per an inscription I found on the cloisters walls (Isaiah 30:15). (The Cathedral is not just a major tourist attraction but also a famous pilgrimage site going back to mediaeval times.)

     Let the verses that affected me so when I heard them sung this morning speak for themselves; suffice it for me to say that their impact was by no means unprecedented in such a setting. (The reading from the Old Testament was, most synchronistically, about Daniel and the Dragon.) This once, I would rather not put anything into words or reach for an interpretation. I leave the rest to the reader’s wisdom and imagination:

Just as I am, though tossed about

with many a conflict, many a doubt,

fightings within, and fears without,

O Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am, poor, wretchèd, blind;

sight, riches, healing of the mind,

yea, all I need, in thee to find,

O Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am, thou wilt receive,

wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve:

because thy promise I believe,

O Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am, of that free love

the breadth, length, depth, and height to prove,

here for a season, then above,

O Lamb of God, I come.

Charlotte Elliott (1836)